Nǐ hǎo!

[Chris_Wendt]

I am very glad to see that Wantagh High has a Chinese I language course in Mandarin. I am also glad to see the Pre-AP courses in Italian and Spanish, and expect that full AP© Spanish and Italian courses will follow, perhaps next year. I am not sure if the advent of the full AP© language courses will then displace the existing college-level Spanish and Italian courses. Wantagh High's language program is progressing nicely.

On the way to Town Bagel on Sunday, my granddaughter piped up in the back seat: "Nǐ hǎo, Pa!"
I asked her if she learned that watching television, and to my surprise she said "No...in school...it's Chinese".
You are learning Chinese in school? Yes, she confirmed.
She had turned 5 in October and attends full-day kindergarten in another LI school district.

Míngtiān jiàn!

Chris Wendt

[kathyt]

I sincerely hope that Mandarin will become part of the foreign language program, beginning in Elementary School here as well.

[Chris_Wendt]

I found this interesting concerning "ELT", which is China's English Language Teaching program:

"Presently, as China is reforming its English language curriculum at all levels of schooling, teachers are facing an unprecedented challenge, and teacher development deserves priority in research. In particular, teacher shortage is one of the biggest challenges that ELT professionals have to deal with, given the number of teachers needed for China’s new ELT curriculum. According to Wen and Gao, China needs to train 0.38 million English teachers, among which 0.3 million are teachers for primary schools, following the introduction of English as a primary school subject."

English Language Education in China:A Review of Selected Research
Wang Wenfeng
English Centre, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Xuesong Gao
Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong

For most Chinese students in primary (elementary) school, English is their second language. For others, those whose native language or dialect is not Mandarin, English is their third language (their native language or dialect being first, Mandarin being second, and English being third).

Where are we, Wantagh...New York State...America, with our language teaching? For the most part, it seems we, in Wantagh, are holding our own with ELA, and with high school "foreign" language courses. NY State and the US in general appear to be struggling with ELA in many quarters, and "foreign" languages are mostly just that.

Chris Wendt